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DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED IN THE ^ 

SECOKD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U ^^u 

ALBANY, APRIL 16, 1865, RI^C^ 

THE SUNDAY MORNING IMMEDIATELY SUCCEEDING 

THE ASSASSINATION 

OF THE 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D. 



ALBANY: 

WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
1865. 



.5 



JJTOFCONSSISJ. 



•SQ'OFWSH«iS^ 



DISCOURSE. 



A day of darkness— [Joel II, 2.] 
In uttering these words, originally prophetic 
of fearful judgments upon the people of Israel, 
I am sure I touch a chord that vibrates to the 
inmost soul of our common country. And in 
thus introducing my discourse I cannot but 
compare the present with the past, — the third 
Sabbath of April, 1865, with the third Sabbath 
ot April, 1861. During the week preceding the 
last mentioned Sabbath, I had prepared a dis- 
course for the morning on some evangelical 
topic, which had no direct reference to the 
imperilled condition of the country. But late 
on Friday evening the appaUingnews came that 
war had actually commenced in a vigorous and 
formidable attack on Fort Sumter. This intel- 
ligence ihvew the whole community into a 
paroxysm of surprise and horror ; and so sure 
was I that you were too much excited to follow 
me in the train into which I had intended to 
lead you, that I thought I should only obey 
the intimations of Providence in endeavouring 
to fix your minds upon some of the lessons 
so impressively taught by that terrible crisis— 
and this conviction gave the complexion to my 
discourse. I was prepared to address you this 
morning on a subject of vital importance, espe- 
cially to those whose miuds are in some degree 
awake to their immortal interests ; but when 
the paralyzing news of what had just occurred 
at Washington met my eye yesterday morning, 
I felt, as in the other case, that I should dis- 
honour God's Providence if I were to attempt 



to direct your thoughts in any other channel 
than that which had thus been opened to me. 
The startling events which have just occurred, 
must always stand out prominently in the his- 
tory of the world ; and though they will afiford 
matter for solemn reflection and warning in all 
coming time, they can never come to us more 
impressively than now, while the nation's heart 
is writhing and bleeding in the most intense 
agony. Let us then reverently pause, and hear 
the voice of God, as it is speaking to us from 
amidst this scene of deep and all pervading dark- 
ness. 

I. And the thought that presses upon us first, 
is nearly akin to one which I had occasion to 
introduce in connection with the funeral services 
of the last Sabbath morning — How manifest is 
it that clouds and darkness are round about 
Jehovah's throne ! We readily assent to this 
truth, as not only clearly revealed in Scripture, 
but as having a continuous illustration in the 
economy of Divine Providence ; but it is only 
in the presence of the greater events, — events 
that startle a nation or convulse the world, — 
events such as those with which our own 
nation is now in contact, that we gain any thing 
like an adequate impression of this truth. 
It has seemed to us a deep mystery that this 
land of ours, consecrated, as it has been, by our 
fathers' blood, and endeared by the most hal- 
lowed remembrances, should have become the 
theatre of desolating war ; that madness should 
have so far reigned in the hearts of a portion of 
our countrymen as to lead them to grasp 
the sword, with a view to sever the bonds in 
which the providence of God had manifestly 



united us ; that their malignant hostility should 
have been suffered to plunge the nation into this 
protracted scene of distress, and, I had almost 
said, to convert the whole land into a mighty 
grave yard. When we have looked out upon 
the passing horrors, and have looked forward to 
the uncertain dismal prospect, have not some of 
us sometimes well nigh felt a staggering of our 
faith, as if there were not an almighty and an 
all-gracious hand hid in the darkness? And 
not only has deep mystery pervaded the gen- 
eral course of events, but the mystery has 
seemed to culminate at particular points ; and 
the most thoughtful and far-seeing have been 
baffled in their attempts at explanation. 

But we had reached a point where light had 
begun to shine out of the darkness; victory 
had succeeded victory until the downfall of the 
rebellion had been virtually accomplished ; in- 
so much that the Chief Magistrate of our State 
liad actually issued his proclamation, and it was 
understood that the President of the United 
States would speedily issue another, for a day 
of thanksgiving, in view of the brightening of 
our national prospects. But just at the 
moment when the nation is getting ready to 
bow herself in gratitude before her great Bene- 
factor, the appalling fact comes upon us, like 
the lightning's flash, that a demon in human 
form has leveled successfully the instrument 
of death against the President, and another has 
attempted the same horrid experiment upon the 
Secretary of State, and his son and assistant, 
thus producing a complicated scene of murder, 
and opening a bloody path out of the highest 
places of human authority into the world un- 



6 



seen. In our grief and sorrow, we cannot help 
asking, wherefore it is that God is thus dealing 
with us ; that the men who had been consti- 
tuted the guides of the nation at this critical 
and perilous crisis, should thus, in a moment, 
be stricken down by the hand of a murderer, 
and the great interests with which they were 
intrusted possibly imperilled by the consequent 
change ? We can only lay our hands upon our 
mouths, and adore the unsearchable depths of 
the Divine counsels, and reverently wait for the 
light from God's throne to illuminate them. 
Future years, future ages, will no doubt reveal 
an explanation of these events, which will in- 
crease the admiration of God's wisdom and 
goodness, both on earth and in Heaven. 

II. In the events we are contemplating is 
mirrored forth, in a most impressive light, the 
awful depravity of the human heart. 

Look at the case as involving simply the guilt 
of murder^ — the premature and violent termi- 
nation of human life, — and that in the face of a 
solemn prohibition from the author of life, with 
a denunciation of the most terrible judgment 
which a human being in this world is capable 
of suffering — even that which, in his madness, 
he ventures to inflict. He who commits murder, 
under any circumstances, inflicts an evil which 
it is impossible for him to repair — he breaks 
up the wonderful, complicated, mechanism that 
enters into our humanity — the tie which binds 
together what is material and what is spiritual 
in man he rashly sunders — all the relations 
which a being, sharing a common nature with 
himself, sustains, he terminates — and so, too, 
he puts an end to all the opportunities for doing 



good, to all the means of spiritual culture, to 
everj thing that enters into the idea of proba- 
tion for eternity. Now, he who commits such a 
crime, apart from all the peculiar circumstances 
by which it is attended, is a monster ; and he 
passes for nothing less, even in the estimation of 
those whose hands are as bloody as his own. 

But mark the peculiar, complicated guilt by 
which this murder comes attended. In common 
with every other similar act, it has thrown a 
circle of relatives and friends into the deepest 
mourning ; withdrawing from them one whose 
kindly and generous qualities had bound him 
to all of them in ties of affection, and to some 
of them in cords of conjugal and paternal love. 
But this is only the beginning of the sorrow 
which it has occasioned. The victim was a man 
whom a large majority of the nation had deemed 
worthy to be placed at its head ; in whose wis- 
dom and integrity they had full confidence ; 
and under whose administration they expected 
shortly to welcome the return of an honourable 
and stable peace. They believed that he held in 
his hands, under God, the destinies of the na- 
tion ; and they expected that he would live to 
be crowned with the whole nation's benedic- 
tions ; and so implicit was the trust which they 
reposed in him, that they scarcely feared any 
adverse influences which the nation might have 
to encounter. It was at such a moment that that 
human fiend rushed forth, and, in the twinkling 
of an eye, laid the President into the arms of 
death. There was an air of desperate defiance in 
the manner of the act, as well as in the act itself, 
that showed a heart that had been steeped in the 
venom of hell. I do not know that the wretch 



8 



has been certainly identified yet, but it is safe 
to presume that he was a repre-sentative of those 
on whom rests the responsibility of having 
deluged this country with blood ; nor is it 
uncharitable to add, that, though his hands 
actually performed the deed, yet it was probably 
the carrying out of an infernal plot, in which 
there had been an extended guilty participation. 
History does not record another murder which 
blends more of those qualities, in which are 
concentrated the malignant horrors of the world 
below. 

And now, the thought which I wish to bring 
home to you, in living reality, is, that this 
fearful crime has been perpetrated by one who 
shares a common nature with you and me ; and 
hence it is not unfair to infer from it the well- 
nigh unlimited susceptibilities of the human 
heart to evil. It is unsafe to presume that we 
are incapable of crimes which we have never 
committed; because the powerful temptation 
may not yet have had the opportunity to act 
upon our inward propensity to evil, and no one 
can tell but that it may come upon him with a 
force which his reason and conscience will be too 
feeble to resist. It is quite a supposable case 
that the time may have been when the wretch 
to whom we are referring would have shuddered 
as much as you or I would have done, at 
the thought of ever being chargeable with shed- 
ding human blood; and possibly this might 
have been his experience one year ago ; but the 
fiend, though quiet, had a lodgment in his 
bosom, and it required only the action of 
circumstances to waken it into full energy. 
In every heart before me, yet unrenewed, 



9 



there lurks the same fiend; and you know not 
now soon he may bring you into an ignoble and 
fatal captivity. You may, indeed, never be 
tempted to the crime of murder, or to any thing 
that shall make you an outlaw from human so- 
ciety—and yet you can never know to what you 
may be tempted, so long as your heart is under 
the dominion of the spirit of evil. Wherefore I 
pray you to begin the conflict with this inward 
monster at once; and be not satisfied till 
you have effectually dethroned and banished 
him. If you wait but a little longer, the silken 
cord with which he has already bound you may 
turn into an iron chain ; and yoa may soon 
awake to the conviction that you are bound by 
that chain for a whole eternity. 

Oh that I could write this thought, as with 
the point of a diamond, on the hearts of all the 
beloved youth before me ! Because you are not 
sensible of the vigorous workings of sin in your 
heart, and because both your reason and moral 
sense are revolted at those daring outrages that 
seem to set both God and man at defiance, you 
calmly repose in the conviction that sin has no 
dominion over you that can furnish reasonable 
ground for alarm. But herein, believe me, you 
are yielding to a most dangerous self-deception. 
You are really setting out in life in league 
with the grand adversary of your soul ; for he 
is represented in that principle of evil in your 
heart ; nay, it is through that principle that he 
stealthily operates to effect your ruin ; where- 
fore I entreat you to summon all the powers of 
your soul, in humble dependence on God's grace, 
to a mighty eff'ort for your deliverance from this 
inward usurper. Be not satisfied with any re- 



10 



formation, outward or inward, that does not 
involve that new creating process by which the 
soul loses its grovelling tendencies and becomes 
transformed into the Redeemer's image. And 
having once reached the point of possessing a 
regenerate nature, you have a right to expect 
that your journey through life will be cheered 
by the gracious and all sustaining presence of 
your Lord and Saviour, and will bring you at 
its close into the midst of the glory that sur- 
rounds his throne. With such appalling pros- 
pects on the one hand, and such glorious pros- 
pects on the other, will you not permit us to 
hope that your first and all engrossing object 
shall be to accept the offered salvation, and 
thereby plant yourselves on ground where you 
will be safe in any emergency. 

III. Another obvious thought suggested by 
this dark outrage upon humanity, is that many 
at his best estate^ has not an eye piercing enough 
to look far into the future. One hour, one mo- 
ment, before the President received the fatal 
charge, he saw nothing to indicate that he was 
not as secure as any of the multitude around 
him; nor was there one perhaps of all the 
lookers on, save the assassin who was pledged 
to the deed, and possibly some of his fiend 
associates, who dreamed that there was any 
murderous agency lurking there ; but in an 
instant the deed that changed him into a corpse 
was done. Yesterday morning a large part of 
the nation was reposing gratefully in the thought 
that his mind was busily, honestly, generously 
at work in arranging the preliminaries of na- 
tional peace ; and some who had never favoured 
his administration before, thought they saw a 



11 



bright spot in it now; but, on opening the 
newspaper to see what the last twelve hours had 
brought forth, what should glare upon them, in 
almost frightful capitals, but the astounding 
intelligence that the President, under an inflic- 
tion of human vengeance, was just closing his 
earthly career ; and the next deliverance of the 
telegraph was that the assassin's triumph was 
complete. There may have been, doubtless 
there were, a herd of banditti, who were look- 
ing for the event with eager hope, and who 
welcomed it with malignant exultation ; but no 
apprehension of it even was awakened in the 
nation at large, until its crushing weight assured 
us of its reality. 

And herein we have represented to us another 
of the most striking features of our present con- 
dition— we never know on what ground the 
next step we take may place us — we cannot tell 
when pleasure will turn into pain ; when hope 
will give place to disappointment ; when life's 
day will come to a close amidst the night- clouds 
of death. A ud the same remark applies to na- 
tions as to individuals — that nation that we reck- 
on most out of the range of vicissitude, and that 
seems to have in it all the elements of substan- 
tial prosperity and enduring growth, may be sud- 
denly convulsed or riven by some internal or for- 
eign influence, and other nations may be looking 
on,perhaps anxiously, perhaps indifferently, per- 
haps triumphantly, to see it perish. I do not 
mean that the future is entirely hid from us, and 
that we are left to grope our way into it without 
any light from without or from within ; for Divine 
Revelation throws some of its beams forward 
upon our path ; and then there is sufficient 



12 



uniformity in the operation of the general laws 
of Providence, to enable us to form an intelli- 
gent judgment, especially in respect to the more 
remote issues of things — still it remains true 
that the details of the fature are unknown to 
us until they are revealed in actual experience. 
Both individuals and nations are liable to find a 
darkness that can be felt gathering around them, 
when, a little before, not a cloud had been seen 
to lower in their horizon. 

And what is the great practical inference to 
"be deduced from this characteristic feature of 
our present existence, but that we should 
always keep ourselves ready for tribulation, 
girded for conflict? If God, in his gracious 
sovereignty, is pleased to exempt us from 
severe suflfering, and to fulfil the promise of any 
given period in respect to a happy future, well 
may we rejoice with thankfulness ; but, if He 
sees best to dash our fond hopes, and cause us 
to walk where the darkness gathers and the 
tempest rages, still let us endeavour to maintain 
such an attitude that we can walk fearlessly, 
securely, triumphantly, even there. In other 
words, let us keep our hearts filled with the 
love of God ; and then the future, no matter 
with what it may be charged, we can afford to 
welcome. 

IV. What a strange commingling of good and 
evil, of joy and sorrow, does human life present ! 
The President had just returned in safety from 
an expedition to the seat of war, including also 
a visit to the Rebel Capital. All his negotiations 
seem to have been, in the highest degree, 
satisfactory. He had returned with the full 
confidence that the blood of the nation would 



13 

soon stop flowing, and that the remaining years 
of his Presidency, though years of toil and anxi- 
ety, would still be years of comparative quietude. 
But there was not so much as the interval of 
a moment between this state of apparent secu- 
rity and joyful anticipation, and his becoming 
the subject of the heaviest earthly calamity 
which mortal man is capable of suffering. And 
then mark the sudden reverse to which the 
nation has been subjected. The fourth anniver- 
sary of the cold-blooded and barbarous attack on 
Sumter had come, and it was to be signalized — 
no doubt was signalized — by the restoration of 
the old flag to its legitimate place, and by the 
very hands from which it had been ignomin- 
iously and cruelly wrested. We all felt that 
it was a glorious day ; and though we could not 
be present to join our voices in the jubilant 
strains that marked the ceremony, yet we were 
there in spirit, rejoicing that that cherished 
emblem of our country's liberty was raised from 
the dust and spread to the breeze, instead of the 
foul emblem of treason that had usurped its 
place. All over the land, wherever there were 
loyal hearts, there were joyous hearts — all felt 
a thrill of exultation at the thought that Right- 
eousness had finally triumphed on the very spot 
where the first open onslaught upon the 
Union was made ; and close by the spot 
whence the malignant decree, that we were no 
more one but twain, emanated. But in the 
closest possible contiguity to this general jubilee 
was an event that has not only caused the tide 
of joy to set back, but has opened a fountain of 
bitterness in the nation's great heart, and has 



14 



seemed to veil the very heavens over our heads 
in sackcloth. The nation went to sleep, amidst 
grateful associations, to dream of the pledges of 
better days, but awoke to have her heart set to 
bleeding by the fearful discovery that she was 
without a head. 

Now does not this illustrate the mixture of 
joy and sorrow which forms so leading a char- 
acteristic of our probationary state ? Is not the 
life of every individual, is not the history of 
every nation, an exemplification of this princi- 
ple of the Divine government ? And is not the 
reasonableness of this providential arrangement 
as apparent as the reality 1 Are not afflictions 
and mercies both necessary to the development 
of the best form of moral life, either individual 
or national 1 An unbroken course of calamity 
would depress and overwhelm the spirit, and de- 
stroy, in a great degree, the power of active exer- 
tion; whereas a uniform and long continued scene 
of prosperity would, with equal certainty, beget, 
in such hearts as ours, a spirit of pride, and 
self-confidence, and forgetfulness of our Supreme 
Benefactor. Is not then the actual arrangement 
of Divine Providence far better than any other 
that our poor wisdom could substitute for it 1 
If it is our privilege to escape from trouble 
where we can, in consistency with a good con- 
science, is it not equally our duty to submit to 
it patiently and confidingly, where no legitimate 
way is open for our deliverance ? If we are not 
called upon to thank God directly for our afflic- 
tions, surely we are bound to gratefully ac- 
knowledge his wisdom and goodness in that 
constitution of things in which afflictions and 
mercies are made to intermingle. 



15 



V. From the blood that has been shed there 
comes a voice rebuking us for having put too 
much conjidence in an arm of flesh, and charging 
us to trust the living God only. 

Are we not, upon a review of our national 
history during the last four years, forced to the 
conclusion that the war has been conducted, to 
a great extent, in the spirit of a practical athe- 
ism ; that the Church has, in some degree, 
shared with the world in its idolatry of leaders 
and generals, and in its hard utterances and 
gloomy forebodings when they have been sup- 
posed to prove themselves incapable or unfaith- 
ful? If, in our prayers, we have recognized 
our need of Divine guidance and help, is there 
not reason to fear that in our habitual tone of 
thought and feeling we have been too much in 
sympathy with those who have been looking 
for great results to man rather than to God ? 
Are there not certain names on the list of our 
military heroes with which, in our inmost 
hearts, we have identified our hopes of deliver- 
ance out of our trouble, far more than w© have 
done with "the name of the Lord," which is 
our only " strong tower ?" Have not a large 
portion of the people really believed and 
practically declared that, chiefly through the 
wisdom and integrity and patriotism of the 
nation's head, was the salvation of the country 
to be accomplished ? But lo ! what a rebuke 
has God, in his providence, been sending to 
us I One general after another, whose name we 
had already begun to enshrine for posterity, has 
passed into inactivity and comparative obscur- 
ity ; and if mentioned at all on the historic 
page, it will be only in connection with some 



16 



disastrous and mortifying failure, by means of 
which he had sunk into insignificance. And 
now, at the very moment when the arm of the 
President seemed strongest, death has palsied it 
— his friends were looking to him with unlim- 
ited confidence to carry the system of measures 
which he had inaugurated into full accomplish- 
ment in the restoration of peace ; but suddenly 
the appalling fact forced itself upon them that 
his last word had been spoken, his last earthly 
labour accomplished. 

And what, think you, is the legitimate inter- 
pretation of these calamitous dispensations ? Is 
it that the Lord is not on our side, and that we 
are therefore to abandon our country's cause in 
despair ? Or is it that we may spare our 
own efforts in this terrible conflict, and leave 
the matter for infinite wisdom to bring to an 
issue, independently of any agency of ours 1 
Forbid it, Heaven forbid it, that we should thus 
misinterpret the dealings of God toward us. 
For have we not evidence already, bright as the 
sun at noonday, that the Lord is on our side — 
yes, on our side, in spite of all our forgetful ness 
of Him — else what means the recent succession 
of victories which have culminated in the sur- 
render of the flower and strength of the Rebel 
Army ; in our possession of the Rebel Capitol ; 
and in the wandering off of the Rebel President 
as a miserable fugitive and vagabond in the 
earth, seeking to hide himself from the hand of 
retributive justice 1 What meant those multi- 
plied tokens of rejoicing and songs of triumph, 
which were greeting our eyes and our ears on 
every side, when the newspapers revealed to 
us the fact of our national bereavement ? I tell 



17 



you, my friends, we have no reason to despair 
of the Divine aid — on the contrary, there is 
every thing to inspire us with the hope that the 
work which God has begun in our "behalf he 
will carry on to its full completion ; and hence, 
though the day which, had been appointed for 
thanksgiving has been changed, by a proclama- 
tion from our Chief Magistrate, to a day of pub- 
lic mourning, yet surely the sorrows to whicb 
we give utterance at the throne of mercy, must 
be qualified by a spirit of devout thankfulness. 
Let us, then, in humble reliance on Divine 
counsel and aid, address ourselves to our duties 
as citizens, as patriots, as Christians, with a 
courage that never falters and a constancy that 
never wavers. Let us do our duty as faithfully 
as if we had no other dependence — let us trust 
God as implicitly as if, in ourselves, we were 
utterly powerless. 

And from this standpoint sure I am that we 
need not be afraid to face the future. Even 
now, while the country is weeping beside the bier 
of her assassinated President, she may afford to 
lift her eye upward, and nerve herself for fresh 
action, in the confidence that she is destined to 
see a better day. What other signal calamities 
may await us, before the storm shall have 
subsided into a perfect calm, no human wisdom 
is adequate to divine — we can afford to leave 
that with the great Ruler of nations, and wait, 
in the faithful discharge of our duty, until 
God's appointed time for our deliverance shall 
come. The whole community — with the ex- 
ception of those whom Humanity herself refuses 
to recognize — join in a hearty reprobation of 
the act that has so suddenly filled the land with 



18 



mourning ; and may we not hope that this will 
be the signal for the abatement of party spirit, 
and the merging, in some degree, of political 
prejudices and animosities into a common desire 
for the security and the exaltation of our noble 
institutions. The best tribute we can render to 
the memory of our departed President, is to 
labour intelligently,vigorously, perseveringly, to 
carry out what we believe was his honest and 
earnest purpose — the preservation of the Union 
and the restoration of peace ; and if we fail to 
do this, will not all our sorrowful utterances in 
view of his death, nay, will not the very mourn- 
ing in which we have draped this place of our 
solemnities, bear testimony against us ? 



LB S '12 



